


New Year's Eve

by sensitivebore



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitivebore/pseuds/sensitivebore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson and Hughes, all over again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Year's Eve

The room is buzzing with a multitude of guests and he's drank too much champagne; His Lordship is so lax about this particular holiday. Encourages everyone, upstairs and down alike, to relax, to circulate with each other - to a point, of course, Carson would never think of intruding on the family and their friends - to make merry and celebrate another year passing at Downton. Another year that they have kept the estate on its feet, kept moving forward with the times.

The drink is flowing and the food has all but been demolished and several people are more than a little tipsy, but for once he's letting it go. He doesn't feel like being the father tonight, scolding and throwing steely-eyed glances at the footmen or the maids for getting a bit loud, a bit raucous with their laughter. Let them enjoy it, he and Mrs. Hughes will be working them hard enough tomorrow to recover from this night of festivities. Speaking of Mrs. Hughes, where in the devil is she? He has sought her out tonight but can never seem to pin her down, she's always being whirled away by this person or that to dance, to drink, to go and look at some flower in the garden under the moonlight.

One of the valets from another house has had a particularly keen eye on her tonight, he has noted jealously. He has seen the man, all right, bringing her drink after drink, asking her to waltz with him. Has seen it and not liked it one bit, but what can he do? What can he say? She no more belongs with him than with any other man here, and he can lay no claim that wouldn't be patently ridiculous. She is a free woman, after all. After a fashion.

He swallows another glass of champagne and there she is, on the window seat with that man and he is holding her arm with a familiarity that draws a hot knot of anger in Carson's chest, in his stomach. He sits his glass down and crosses the room to her, his jaw set high, his shoulders hard.

"Mrs. Hughes?"

She looks up at him, eyes bright with the lights, with the wine she is sipping, with the attention being lavished on her.

"Mr. Carson?"

His lips thin when the valet's hand closes possessively around her upper arm, and he has had just about enough of this.

"Can I speak with you, please? About our plans for tomorrow." He watches with satisfaction as the other man's eyes grow disappointed, sulky at the implications. Of course, their plans for tomorrow are nothing more than the usual work rotations, but he doesn't have to know that.

Reluctantly, she disengages herself, makes her pretty excuses, leaves the ballroom with him. She is lovely in a rented gown, an unfamiliar jeweled comb holding her chignon in place and he is bold from too much alcohol and too many lonely nights and too many frustrated days of holding his tongue, keeping his peace, and she should have been at his side tonight. His. No others.

"Yes, Mr. Carson? About tomorrow —"

Her words are cut off abruptly as he holds her face carefully between his hands and kisses her; kisses her truly, with intent, with meaning, leaving no question as to his desires and his thoughts. His lips are searching, hard, demanding she yield to him and she does, opens for him, allows him to enter the hot wet wine of her, to taste her and his fingers tighten as he pushes deeper, ravishes her lovely mouth without regret, without restraint.

She breaks the kiss with a gasp, pulls away from him. Looks at him, distraught, shaken, turns and disappears back into the ballroom, loses him in the crowd. She weaves her way through the dancers, through the small groupings of people chatting, and fumbles at the door of the library. It's always empty, really, during functions like this. Always empty and always her refuge, she thinks.

She lets herself in, slips through the door and closes it again before anyone can see her and leans there against a bookshelf, presses the back of her gloved hand to her mouth. Stifles a sob. Her lips are tender and moist and taste like him and just when she had accepted that they'd live out their lives as Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes, as the housekeeper and the butler, friends but nothing more, he does this. He goes and turns her inside out all over again, and tomorrow he will act as if nothing ever happened - or worse, apologize for it, apologize for wanting her.

Inside out. All over again.


End file.
